Nicholas of Cusa and the wisdom of ignorance

Nicholas of Cusa, a 15th century papal diplomat, was one of the first people to realise the earth is not at the centre of the cosmos. However he is best remembered for his theory that we can only attain knowledge by admitting our own ignorance, writes Margaret Coffey.

Late in 1438, on a slow boat journey from Constantinople to Venice, German genius and papal diplomat Nicholas of Cusa conceived of the value of ignorance as a means to attain knowledge. It came as a revelation, he wrote in De docta ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance): the more one tries to understand the depth of one’s incapacity to know the infinite God, the more one’s ignorance becomes learned. Thus, in contemplating the divine, Nicholas acquired a fundamental building block in the setting up of modern scientific method.

We like certainty so much in our days. Cusanus is saying, now when we’re discussing what is really important in life then we have to learn to live with this absence of certainty.

Inigo Bocken, academic director of the Titus Brandsma Institute

Never heard of Nicholas of Cusa? This is a good year to find out about this fascinating figure since it is the 550th anniversary of his death. For one thing, his ideas usefully complicate our sense of how the mind works and how we arrive at knowledge. Cusanus, as he is also known, learned in a way that doesn’t have much street cred these post-Enlightenment days.

Metaphysics enabled Cusanus to arrive a generation before Copernicus at the idea that the earth is not at the centre of the cosmos and that it is constantly in motion. He understood more than a century before Kepler that the motions of the planets are not circular. The list goes on. He advocated reform of the calendar a century before the Gregorian reform was set in place. Thinking about the practicalities of friction and order within the Church alongside his Christian vision of human freedom led him to a first for Western history—the argument that all governance comes from the consent of subjects. He tried to work out ways of representing that consent in the Church context—an ongoing story for the Church, but also for the body politic.

Cusanus had gone to Constantinople to try to set up a council between the clashing Greek and Roman Churches—the Council of Florence in 1439, which temporarily achieved unity, was the outcome. It was on his way back from these difficult negotiations that Cusanus had the vision in which he said he learned to comprehend incomprehensible things. On the basis of that experience he wrote his first major work, On Learned Ignorance. He was trying to capture the idea that we must recognise our own limitations, our own ignorance, but that we can use that not-knowing in very creative ways. That’s how Cusanus’ insight is described by Dermot Moran, the current president of the Federation of International Philosophical Societies and a specialist on Cusanus and other key figures who shared his mystical orientation.

Cusanus was a canon lawyer, diplomat and administrator; out of enthusiasm and curiosity he was also mathematician, philosopher and theologian. In all these fields he made lasting contributions on the basis of using not knowing. His range of interests and his facility with metaphor demonstrate that he was a man of considerable intellectual inquisitiveness and imagination—he was entranced by the way the mind works, which was also his way of doing theology.

Inigo Bocken, the Belgian-born academic director of the Titus Brandsma Institute, says that On Learned Ignorance offers a critical insight for theology: we don’t know who God is, but this not knowing has to lead our lives. We have to avoid claiming to know what God is. ‘We see today that a lot of people claim to know how God is or what is in fact the same, they claim to know that there is no God, or something,’ says Mr Bocken. ‘We like certainty so much in our days.’

‘Cusanus is saying, now when we’re discussing what is really important in life then we have to learn to live with this absence of certainty. This absence of certainty is the source of our creativity. It’s a room for freedom.’

This room for freedom is of particular interest to people engaged in inter-faith dialogue today; it offers space to talk with one another across divisions and to maintain difference without giving offence.

Don’t be misled by the Latin sound of the name Cusa or Cusanus. Cusanus was born in a small town in wine-growing territory on the banks of the Moselle—a town called Kues, Latinised into Cusa. You can still visit his far-sighted legacy in the modern town of Bernkastel-Kues. It’s a home for the elderly, the outcome of his will 550 years ago, in which he specified that a hospital for the aged poor be set up. He took enormous interest in the design of the original buildings, which are still standing, alongside a famous vineyard. The hospital has remained operating throughout the centuries, right next to the library he established to house his remarkable manuscript collection, so that these volumes would be available for study. In fact, the original design ensured that the two facilities were inter-connected.

Encounter invites listeners to explore the connections between religion and life—intellectually, emotionally and intuitively—across a broad spectrum of topics.